College Admissions Scandal Exposes More Leftist Treachery

First, here is a very brief word about the killing of 49 muslims at two New Zealand mosques:

Muslims the world over have virtually never denounced the endless stream of islamic terror attacks on Europe, the US and Christians.

So now the muslims in New Zealand have themselves been victims of terrorism. So perhaps this will change their thinking and their behavior. But there is no guarantee of that.

Meanwhile The New York Times reported on December 11, 2016:

A bomb ripped through a section reserved for women at Cairo’s main Coptic (Christian) cathedral during Sunday morning Mass, killing at least 25 people and wounding 49, mostly women and children, Egyptian state media said.

Do you remember this being a massive international news story like the New Zealand story?

No. It was generally ignored by the pro-muslim global media. How about this from CNN on April 10, 2017:

Egypt’s President says he will declare a state of emergency after two deadly bombings targeted Coptic Christian churches on Palm Sunday.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were aimed at a vulnerable religious minority on one of the most important days on the Christian calendar.

The death toll rose to at least 49 Monday, state media reported. At least 27 people died in a blast inside a church in the northern city of Tanta, and 78 people were injured, according to Egypt’s state-run news agency Al-Ahram. In Alexandria, 18 civilians and four police officers were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Coptic church, Al-Ahram said.

Nikitas3.com does not remember any major coverage of this event like we are seeing wall-to-wall coverage of the New Zealand attack.

Now here is today’s main commentary:

College Admission Scandal Exposes More Leftist Treachery

The college admissions scandal among Hollywood elites like actress Lori Loughlin is yet another shameful example of liberal hypocrisy – privileged and wealthy actresses pulling every string and using their positions of power and influence to get advantages for their children even though their children already were born into very privileged lifestyles.

Yet those same left-wing Hollywood/university elites have been lecturing us for decades about “inequality” and claiming that they somehow are fighting for “the little guy”.

What brazen liars and hypocrites they are, and typical of the socialist/globalist left today. Here is a brief synopsis of the scandal from USA Today:

Actress Lori Loughlin, one of three Hollywood figures charged with paying bribes to get their children into elite colleges, appeared in court Wednesday and was released on a $1 million bail.

… Earlier Wednesday, the former “Aunt Becky” from TV’s ‘Full House’ (series from 1987 to 1995) turned herself in at the courthouse and was arrested, according Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office Central District in Los Angeles. He said Loughlin had been out of the country and returned to L.A. late Tuesday.

Loughlin was supposed to be arrested Tuesday along with 38 other wealthy, prominent parents around the country, including “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman and Loughlin’s fashion-designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, whose Mossimo label has starred at Target for years.

Huffman was arrested by FBI agents early Tuesday at her Los Angeles home and taken downtown; by dinner she was released on $250,000 bail.

Giannulli was arrested at his and Loughlin’s home Tuesday and was released after posting $1 million bond following his court appearance.

The accused in the case have been organized into three groups by prosecutors, according to their participation in the alleged bribery scheme and how they were charged (federal indictment, information or criminal complaint). Their arraignments are scheduled on separate dates in March in Boston. The parents – a group of more than 30, including Huffman, Loughlin and Giannulli – are scheduled to be arraigned on March 29.

The three are among 50 people who have been charged by federal prosecutors in Boston in connection with a sweeping $25 million scheme in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and insiders at college testing centers to help get their children into some of the most elite schools in the country.

Loughlin, 54, and Giannulli, 55, are charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, the couple allegedly agreed in July 2016 to pay bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for getting their two daughters into the University of Southern California as purported crew athletes, even though neither were athletes and both were clueless about crew.

This story is so grotesque that Global News reported:

Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli’s 19-year-old daughter, Olivia Jade Gianulli, was on the yacht of Rick Caruso, the chairman of University of Southern California’s Board of Trustees, when her parents were indicted for allegedly paying $500,000 for her acceptance to USC.

The Hollywood reporter confirmed that Olivia Jade was in the Bahamas for spring break on Tuesday with Caruso’s 19-year-old daughter Gianna (Gigi) Caruso, before returning to Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Oh, poor Olivia… Caruso is a billionaire businessman who graduated from USC years ago. There is no evidence to date that he is involved in the scandal.

It gets worse. Fox News reports:

Lori Loughlin’s daughter Olivie Jade Giannulli joked in a vlog post last year that she was “literally never at school,” as the young YouTube star’s past videos draw new scrutiny amid a massive college admissions scandal that resulted in Loughlin’s arrest this week.

“Maybe they forget I go there!” the now 19-year-old Giannulli jokes in the post, titled “MY LAST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL.” The nine-minute video is dated May 22, 2018.

“I’m kidding!,” she quickly adds.

Giannulli took criticism last year for a vlog in which she said she didn’t “really care about school,” and was interested in attending college only for “game days, partying.”

This scandal comes after our colleges and universities have been ripping off America for decades by charging outrageous tuitions and sending millions of young people into a life of debt while issuing worthless degrees.

At the same time, the quality of education has plummeted into the abyss. These schools have become little more than leftist indoctrination centers.

This scandal emanates from the political left where the universities, rich Hollywood stars, the media and the Democrat party intersect in a cozy and corrupt cabal. Look at this from The Daily Caller:

A woman who has been caught up in the major college admissions scandal reportedly co-hosted a fundraising event for Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Jane Buckingham, who has been accused of paying $50,000 to get her son into the University of Southern California, reportedly co-hosted a party for Gillibrand at home in Beverly Hills on March 9, according to Page Six. The event was held to help fund Gillibrand’s exploratory 2020 presidential run.

And don’t think that this story is not going to widen over the next year. This type of bribery is certainly happening all over the country.

It is interesting that the story broke under president Trump. Is this part of his effort to Drain the Swamp, even the Swamp outside Washington?

Could be. We heard about exorbitant college tuition costs during congressional hearings in the 1990s. Look at this from The Chicago Tribune in …. 1997!

After decades of stonewalling by academics on an issue parents and students confront every time they write a tuition check, a few voices from within the ivory tower now are urging colleagues to admit that escalating college tuitions are completely out of hand.

In a new report, the university presidents and corporate executives who make up the Commission on National Investment in Higher Education, an independent subsidiary of the not-for-profit think tank Rand Corp., warned that within 20 years a college degree will be beyond the reach of as many as half the students who want and are qualified to seek one.

The commission based its projection on Rand research showing federal support per student just keeping pace with inflation since the late 1970s, while the costs of educating a student have grown 40 percent. Further, government entitlement programs–Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid–have caused a shift of spending from the younger to the older generation that squeezes higher education out of the federal budget.

With situations very similar at the state and local levels, tuition is expected to bear more of the financial burden of higher education, forcing so many students away from campuses that the character of American society will be seriously damaged, the report said.

The commission suggests the only alternative is an overhaul of the entire higher educational system, including such radical cost-cutting concepts as shared libraries and a focusing of financial resources on “core competencies”–in other words, universities should capitalize on their individual strengths and no longer try to be everything to everybody.

Has anything been done about these spiraling costs in the last 22 years?

No, and now we discover that the colleges have concocted a system to get their rich friends taken care of. This new scandal is one of the most shameful events ever to be exposed in US history as tens of millions of Americans struggle with college costs and college debt and even forego higher education over its high price tag.

But there is a bright side. It appears that real action will be taken against these university “robber barons”. Yahoo News reports:

The massive college admissions scam that snared 50 people in a federal indictment, including two high-profile actresses, has prompted a class-action lawsuit filed by two California college students.

The suit was filed Tuesday in a Northern California federal court by two students at Stanford University, one of the eight elite colleges named in the lawsuit, all of which had associated individuals implicated in the bribery case.

In the suit, students Erica Olsen and Kalea Woods claimed they both went through the legitimate and rigorous admissions process to Stanford and were “never informed that the process of admission was an unfair, rigged process, in which rich parents could buy their way into the university through bribery.”

The suit also names as defendants the University of Southern California, UCLA, the University of San Diego, the University of Texas, Wake Forest University, Yale University and Georgetown University.

The college admissions scam investigation said that people associated with various athletic teams at each of those schools were involved in getting students admission.

Olsen, according to the lawsuit, applied to Yale University in 2017, submitting “stellar standardized test score, and a glowing profile that including being a talented athlete and dancer.”

Olsen noted that she paid an application fee of approximately $80, according to the suit.

“Had she known that the system at Yale University was warped and rigged by fraud, she would not have spent the money to apply to the school,” the lawsuit states. “She also did not receive what she paid for — a fair admissions consideration process.”

Olsen contends she had been damaged by the admissions scandal because her degree from Stanford “is now not worth as much as it was before, because prospective employers may now question whether she was admitted to the university on her own merits, versus having parents who were willing to bribe school officials.”

Let us hope that these lawsuits spread nationwide. And once again a member of the Trump administration has hit the nail on the head, standing up for “we the people” against the Hollywood/university elites. Fox News reported:

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday excoriated actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, who authorities say were among those implicated in a massive cheating scandal to ensure their children were granted admission into the country’s most elite universities.

Conway, President Trump’s top adviser, called Huffman, a “Desperate Housewives” star, and Loughlin, a “Full House” alum, “stupid,” accusing them of “lying and buying” spots in college for their kids.

“They worried their daughters are as stupid as their mothers,” Conway, a mother of four, tweeted Tuesday.